Many marketplaces connecting small businesses and freelancers have emerged in the last decade all over the world and they seem to be empowered by the difficult economic landscape and the liberalization of global marketplace. In this post i will focus a little bit more on PeoplePerHour a relativly new freelance site.

So, what is peopleperhour.com? Does it have anything different to suggest or is it one more freelance bidding site? Is it worth my time? Is it better than the other freelancing sites?In this post i will try to cover the basics and answer as many of your questions as possible about the site, but please keep in mind that the best way to form an opinion about a service is to try it out for yourselves.

Before i continue, i would like to notice that the post below is based on personal experience, i have tried to be as objective as possible.

PeoplePerHour is a freelance bidding marketplace, where thousands of small businesses and employers go to hire freelancer for small projects or even for a few hours a week, enabling a new lean and flexible way of working. This is very similar in concept to oDesk and Elance and other similar freelancing sites. A freelance marketplace connects employers and freelancers in the way that employers post projects or jobs and freelancers bid on these projects. It is common that users have a dual account , meaning they can both post and bid on jobs. PeoplePerHour isn’t the first online marketplace for freelancers, there have been several in the past and some have a pretty strong hold on the highly competitive landsacape. Elance is one of the oldest but still very popular marketplace.In the contrary, oDesk is newer but has grown really rapidly over the past several years.

Supply and demand

The number of jobs at PeoplePerHour.com is certainly less than those of its bigger competitors like oDesk,Guru,Elance etc. However, I was surprised to see that the quality of jobs was considerably high. I don’t have the raw statistics but the average pay on PeoplePerHour.com is far higher than either oDesk or Elance and I will dare to say that the quality of jobs is one of the highest I have come across. As a result, it is only natural to conclude that the freelancers using Peopleperhour.com are highly qualified too.
An issue that concerns almost all freelance bidding marketplaces is that the quality of jobs are sometimes disappointing causing major complaints from both clients and freelancers.
The freelancers are unsatisfied because their wages are low due to increasing competition from low quality providers and this drives the good, ranked freelancers away to other avenues which coincides to clients leaving the service and following or trying to find quality freelancer to do business with. Surprisingly, this hasn’t yet happened with PeoplePerHour. The wages are decent and appropriate for the skills required for the jobs. I don’t know how they did it or if it sustainable but as far as it concerns me, if you are a quality freelancer, this is certainly a site to check out.
It’s obvious though that if the supply of jobs remains low, it might cause trouble to the users of Peopleperhour.com.
To sum up, the quality of jobs posted is very high as compared to other marketplaces. The number of jobs is modest. If you have the right skills for the job, definitely worth checking out and being a part of. At the same time, accomplished freelancers might still find that they are better off on their own. The wages are good, but not extraordinary either. If you are looking for highly qualified workers, this is the place to look.

Subscription Model

PeoplePerHour, Elance also, has implemented a layered subscription model while oDesk has no membership subscription fee, which oDesk substitute buy a high, but very straightforward 10% project fee flat, with no exceptions or membership upgrades. However, this isn’t the case with PeoplePerHour.
As shown above the service fees depends on your membership type, and so do limits on how many projects you can bid on. Many dispute that this is a model that works, but personally i can’t find much to like in this one.

To conclude
PeoplePerHour can be very open as compared to the other online marketplaces. For example, you can find the team and know about them. Some client testimonials, earnings and profiles are also refreshingly open and professional, boosting PPH’s credibility.
The PeoplePerHour Economy is another great feature to check out. You can get some really interesting statistics here about the freelancers and clients who use the site, the size of projects and other information that would interest both freelancers and buyers.PeoplePerHour.com is a relatively new online marketplace and this review might not capture all aspects of the services provided but the highly qualitative jobs and freelancers definitely provides a strong incentive to try it out. Peopleperhour provides a portfolio of services that freelancers and employers working with freelancers, should try.